Download all files from a Slack workspace export folder.

slack-files-downloader.sh

#!/bin/bash 
#
# This script will browse a Slack export folder and download all files in a new /export folder
# 
# HOW TO:
# 1. As a Workspace admin, download an export of your Slack history (https://www.slack.com/services/export) 
# 2. Make sure you have jq installed (https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)
# 3. Place this file at the root of your Slack export folder, next to channels.json
# 4. Run `bash slack-files-downloader.sh` in your terminal
#
# OPTIONS
# -o Overwrite files if they already exist in destination folder, otherwise skip them.
# -s Do not show message when a file is skipped


while getopts "os" flag
do
    case $flag in
        o) overwrite=true;;
        s) silent=true;;
    esac
done

printf "\nSelect one specific file type to download or leave empty for any (e.g. mp3, binary, jpg, png):\n"
read usertype

printf "\nSelect a channel to look into or leave empty for all channels:\n"
read userchannel

for channel in $(cat channels.json | jq -rc '.[].name')
do
	if [[ $channel == $userchannel ]] || [[ -z $userchannel ]]
	then
		printf "\n============================================\nLooking into #$channel...\n============================================\n"

		for file in "$channel"/*.json
		do
			for a in $(cat $file | jq -c '.[].files[]? | [.title, .url_private_download, .filetype, .timestamp] | del(..|nulls)' | sed 's/ //g')
			do
				filetype=$(echo $a | jq -r '.[2]')

				if [[ $filetype == $usertype ]] || [[ -z $usertype ]] || [[ -z $filetype ]]
				then
					filename_raw=$(echo $a | jq -r '.[0]')
					
					filename=$(echo $filename_raw | sed -e 'y/āáǎàçēéěèīíǐìōóǒòūúǔùǖǘǚǜüĀÁǍÀĒÉĚÈĪÍǏÌŌÓǑÒŪÚǓÙǕǗǙǛÜ/aaaaceeeeiiiioooouuuuuuuuuAAAAEEEEIIIIOOOOUUUUUUUUU/')
					filename="${filename##*/}"
					
					if [[ ! -z $filename_raw  ]] && [[ $filename_raw != "null"  ]] 
					then		
						ts=$(echo $a | jq -r '.[3]')
						year=$(date -r $ts '+%Y')
						month=$(date -r $ts '+%m')

						# prefix filenames with date/time, as the same filename could be used
						# multiple times in different slack messages with different file contents.
						datetime=$(date -r $ts '+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S')
						filename="${datetime}-${filename}"
        
						if [ -f "export/$channel/$year/$month/$filename" ] && [[ $overwrite != true ]]
						then
							if [[ $silent != true ]]
							then
								printf "$filename already exists in destination folder. Skipping!\n"
							fi
							continue
						fi
						
						printf "Downloading $filename...\n"
							
						mkdir -p export/$channel/$year/$month

						url=$(echo $a | jq -rc '.[1]')
						
						
						printf "downloading to export/$channel/$year/$month/$filename with $ts\n"            
						curl --progress-bar $url -o "export/$channel/$year/$month/$filename"
					fi
				fi
			done
		done
	fi
done

Attention: I just realized (using a forked version of your script), that if there are multiple files per message, only the first one will be downloaded! Instead of filtering '.[].files[0]', you can filter '.[].files[]?', which will iterate all files, if any are available. This also is much faster for channels with many messages, that don't contain files.

Thank you so much for your contribution, this really saved me a lot of time, and thanks to @v01pe for the fork, which I forked off of as well and made my own rendition. Much appreciated and thank you both for sharing!

@v01pe Thanks for the suggestion! I've updated the gist to include your change 🙏